garmin camper 770 lmt-d sat nav any good

Offagain said:
We have one which we bought because it had lots of positive reviews.
During our recent 5 week tour of France and Spain we ended up using the navigation part of it solely for getting us out of towns and heading vaguely in the right direction. After that we turned the navigation part off and relied on paper maps and google maps as it usually caused more problems than it solved.

I would like to be able to select specific roads to use, rather than using a town (eg) as a way point then having to remember to delete it just before get there so it routes us round it rather than through the middle.
I liked being able to use the app to add destinations but find it quite "clunky". It would be more use to be able to see and adjust the route on the app then send it to the unit once complete so the driver can still use it whilst planning is under way. Paul uses it as a speedo.
Also it has an annoying habit of often using the names of roads rather than their number to direct you at the next junction, which is often useless as they aren't signposted. Plus the speech is totally useless at pronouncing French and Spanish words anyway, so even if there were street names on signs out of roundabouts etc I wouldn't know if it was the right one because I have no idea what she's just said.
It is quite possible I just don't know how to use it and prepare to stand corrected. Although I did spend a very long time trying to find where these options might be before deciding it was not the right one for us.
I expect we will have replaced it with something else before we leave on our next trip.
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You can select a specific road or junction, or you can select a specific point on the map or points sequentially to make up a route which can have as many waypoints as you want, no need to select town centres and then delete them. I find road names fine but I believe you can turn them off in settings menu. I don’t know about Spanish words but French pronunciation hasn’t been s problem for me.

I would urge anyone buying the device to spend a good long time thoroughly reading the user manual, then doing it again and practicing all the various functions until they are very familiar with the device and it’s capabilities before using it in anger. That will save a lot of anguish and disappointment.
 
iandsm said:
You can select a specific road or junction, or you can select a specific point on the map or points sequentially to make up a route which can have as many waypoints as you want, no need to select town centres and then delete them. I find road names fine but I believe you can turn them off in settings menu. I don’t know about Spanish words but French pronunciation hasn’t been s problem for me.

I would urge anyone buying the device to spend a good long time thoroughly reading the user manual, then doing it again and practicing all the various functions until they are very familiar with the device and it’s capabilities before using it in anger. That will save a lot of anguish and disappointment.
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As I said, it's probably me!
 
Well, bought one a couple of days ago to replace my old one that kept shutting down all by itself, and blow me down, this new one is doing the exact same thing. It re-booted itself once yesterday, but six times today. It's going back pdq. :mad:
 
TheAleMan said:
Well, bought one a couple of days ago to replace my old one that kept shutting down all by itself, and blow me down, this new one is doing the exact same thing. It re-booted itself once yesterday, but six times today. It's going back pdq. :mad:
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Did you make sure it was fully charged before playing with it if it wasn’t plugged in to 12 volt. The battery only last about 45 mins

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iandsm said:
Did you make sure it was fully charged before playing with it if it wasn’t plugged in to 12 volt. The battery only last about 45 mins
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Hi, yes it was plugged into the 12v socket in our works truck. For three long journeys on the trot it has played up. Turned itself off and back on again on the first day, just the once. Second day, it repeated it but six times. Today, turned itself off and on again about three times, but also today, it dropped the map on several occasions. I have made arrangements for this one to be picked up, and there's a new one sitting in my neighbors house but they are not in (I missed the postman).:rolleyes: If this new one does the same, then it's bye bye Garmin.(y)
 
TheAleMan said:
Hi, yes it was plugged into the 12v socket in our works truck. For three long journeys on the trot it has played up. Turned itself off and back on again on the first day, just the once. Second day, it repeated it but six times. Today, turned itself off and on again about three times, but also today, it dropped the map on several occasions. I have made arrangements for this one to be picked up, and there's a new one sitting in my neighbors house but they are not in (I missed the postman).:rolleyes: If this new one does the same, then it's bye bye Garmin.(y)
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Hope your new one is ok. Good luck with it.etcus know how you get on.
 
Update as promised. Happy to say..new replacement Garmin Camper 770 is working mighty fine, and I think it's a great bit of kit. (y)
 
TheAleMan said:
Update as promised. Happy to say..new replacement Garmin Camper 770 is working mighty fine, and I think it's a great bit of kit. (y)
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Great news. I recommend you read the manual, then read it again, then play with the device so you become very familiar with all it can do, and that’s a lot. You will then get the best out of it. Hope you continue to enjoy it and have some great trips

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iandsm said:
Great news. I recommend you read the manual, then read it again, then play with the device so you become very familiar with all it can do, and that’s a lot. You will then get the best out of it. Hope you continue to enjoy it and have some great trips
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Thanks iandsm. I have been reading the manual, although I am already very familiar with Garmin, namely the Nuvi 3598, which by the way has a better mount..a magnetic one. Why they didn't incorporate that into the camper series i have no idea. (y)
 
Had a Garmin Camper - it tried to save 30m by turning us down a side street which was at 270 degrees - only saved because we could see how stupid it was being. The following week it tried to get us across a bridge which was 2m wide. Then it started to freeze - sits here doing nothing.
 
TheAleMan said:
Not used mine in camper mode yet, so I'm sure to find out. Been using it everyday for work and it's been fine.
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Exagerate the size of your camper in the profile a little to ensure better routing but be aware the device is dependent on the information of roads given by its maps which are not Garmin. It won’t know the suitability of all roads and if it doesn’t it will tell you.
 
Had our 770 a few months now and getting to know it’s little foibles and things that annoy me.

1. The mount is a backward step. You have to take the unit off the mount then unplug the cable. The 760 had a proper mount with power built in.

2. Still sends me down narrower roads than I would expect, and silly short cuts that take twice as long as staying on the main road

3. It doesn’t zoom in close enough when you are trying to negotiate complicated junctions and position updates can be slow. I’ve taken wrong turns a few times that zooming in properly would have avoided.

4. Sometimes after starting on a new route, it can take a while to establish which way you need to go, again, probably due to slow position updates.

Apart from that, it’s great!

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iandsm said:
Exagerate the size of your camper in the profile a little to ensure better routing but be aware the device is dependent on the information of roads given by its maps which are not Garmin. It won’t know the suitability of all roads and if it doesn’t it will tell you.
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Hi, yes, fully aware of it's limitations. Always use a bit of common when dealing with such things. (y)
 
Allanm said:
Had our 770 a few months now and getting to know it’s little foibles and things that annoy me.

1. The mount is a backward step. You have to take the unit off the mount then unplug the cable. The 760 had a proper mount with power built in.

2. Still sends me down narrower roads than I would expect, and silly short cuts that take twice as long as staying on the main road

3. It doesn’t zoom in close enough when you are trying to negotiate complicated junctions and position updates can be slow. I’ve taken wrong turns a few times that zooming in properly would have avoided.

4. Sometimes after starting on a new route, it can take a while to establish which way you need to go, again, probably due to slow position updates.

Apart from that, it’s great!
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Yes, I notice a few of those foibles from my old Garmin. I now try to out think it. :LOL:
 
Just remembered another annoying habit it has.
Very often it will tell you to take a specific road using its street name. It did this a few times in France where street names are rarely evident.
It would be much easier to tell me the road designation instead.
 
when approaching next instruction, I make sure I keep one eye on the map. Very easy to miss a turn if you don't.
 
Allanm said:
Just remembered another annoying habit it has.
Very often it will tell you to take a specific road using its street name. It did this a few times in France where street names are rarely evident.
It would be much easier to tell me the road designation instead.
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We find that the pronunciation of French road names is so poor it’s distracting - and even worse in Spain. Solution is to change voices to one that doesn’t even try to pronounce street names.

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I find it way better than the TomTom it replaced. As mentioned above, lots of settings, it really needs time spending on getting it to work just how you want it to work. Just in the process of adding the reversing camera. 3 week delivery? Where's my instant gratification?
 
Allanm said:
Just remembered another annoying habit it has.
Very often it will tell you to take a specific road using its street name. It did this a few times in France where street names are rarely evident.
It would be much easier to tell me the road designation instead.
Click to expand...
This is an annoying trait of all Garmin units.
Follow the A11 from London to Norfolk and it switches from A11 to London Rd on and off.
 
LesW said:
This is an annoying trait of all Garmin units.
Follow the A11 from London to Norfolk and it switches from A11 to London Rd on and off.
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It’s done that a couple of times on me, then other times it hasn’t. I think it makes allowances for traffic volumes and re routes you accordingly. Travelling through France from Brittany to Calais and back and it has sent us on different routes almost every time.
 
In running through the map updates I finally got around to installing to my mac and downloading BaseCamp. It's a bit clunky but just did a great job of planning our next spring Sweden trip :)
 
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I bought ours a year ago to avoid using a phone and Google maps in France. I like the navigation in use as it's clear etc. However I'm very frustrated with programming it for a route and finding pois etc. It seems incredibly slow to the point that I wonder if it has a problem. Also I try to add in a location based on one category of poi and when it can't find it, it goes back to where it started (usually my current location) and I have to start again. This is especially so when using the map when I know a stop is around an area and just want to locate it. I suspect I may not know how to use it properly and too used to Google maps, but I'm fairly tech literate and find this lacking in intuition. Am I alone? Or am I doing things wrongly? Currently in Italy and planning a trip home so this is a live question! Thanks

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I think there may be something wrong with either the device or your use of it, or both. It shouldn't be slow though, mine is very fast. Try a reset but as you haver access to the internet download the manual and read it thoroughly. If those thongs don't work I think you may have a duff unit. Also ensure you have the current map and software downloaded. If that makes no difference, just to get you over this current trip you should ask it to navigate to only one stage at a time, keeping it simple should get you out of a jam.
 
Many thanks iandsm. I'll do some thorough testing when we get home and survive for now. Don't really know how fast is fast for these things but on journey here there were times when it was only just drawing the road ahead! The maps need updating so will try that when I get a decent WiFi (don't want to gobble up my Vodafone data).
 

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